The Greatest Story Ever Told Versus The Greatest Story Ever Sold

Another Superbowl Sunday has come and gone, but a far more significant battle is going on next Sunday – a battle for our very pulpits!

Creation Weekend 2017 is quickly approaching. For those who aren’t aware, every year atheist Dr Michael Zimmerman, the fellow behind the pro-evolution Clergy Letter Project, encourages churches to celebrate an Evolution Sunday on the weekend nearest Charles Darwin’s birthday. So we ask churches to celebrate a service dedicated to the doctrine of Creation on that weekend instead.

This year, everything falls on February 10-12, 2017. Interestingly enough, Zimmerman’s theme this year is the Universe Story. The Universe Story goes by several different names, including the Epic of Evolution and the Great Story.

While well-meaning creationists have been distancing themselves from the very words “Bible stories” out of the fear that this will encourage the idea that the Bible is not historically true. As I wrote in Strangers and Aliens:

Some of my fellow Christian apologists disparage this tendency to look at the Bible’s history in terms of stories. There’s concern that we learn history in school, but mere Bible stories in church, diminishing the influence of Scriptural truth in our children’s lives. I’ve fallen off of this particular bandwagon. You see, as a storyteller I’ve come to realize that the power of the Gospel is in the fact that it is the Greatest Story Ever Told. The Bible is what we call a True Myth. By myth, I do not mean a story that is not true; in the academic sense, a myth is “a story that serves to define the fundamental worldview of a culture by explaining aspects of the natural world and delineating the psychological and social practices and ideals of a society.” So by True Myth, I mean a story that can shape cultures and change lives which also happens to be historically true.

Evolutionists are only just realizing the power of the story. Michael Dowd and his wife Connie Barlow style themselves as “evolution evangelists.” One of the things they’ve begun to promote is what they call “The Great Story.” Also known as the Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, or Big History, the Great Story is, according to the couple’s website, “humanity’s common creation story… a sacred narrative of an evolving Universe of emergent complexity and breathtaking creativity — a story that offers each of us the opportunity to find meaning and purpose in our lives and our time in history.”

They have the Great Story, but we still have the Greatest Story Ever Told, and ours makes a great deal more sense to the reader. The “Great Story” lacks a point. I mean, we’re really supposed to find meaning and purpose in something that, if true, is indifferent, undirected, pitiless, meaningless and blind?? They say that we must make our own meaning, but what that really means is that we must make-believe that anything has meaning at all! Such a worldview is an empty box wrapped in bright promises. As dear Mr. Tumnus would say, “always winter and never Christmas.”
In any case, my point is that we don’t really have to choose between Biblical history and Bible stories – it’s preferable that we don’t!”

This year, Creation Sunday falls on the actual birthday of Charles Darwin. Those celebrating an atheist’s Evolution Sunday tend to be emboldened when the stars thus align. Many of those preaching Darwin from our pulpits cannot even affirm that Christ physically rose from the dead, a non-negotiable requirement of authentic saving faith per Romans 10:9. In fact, many of these so-called “Christian clergy” who have rallied behind this atheist’s cause openly doubt the Bible and, in some cases, do not even believe in God. They are unbelievers of the worst sort: wolves in sheep’s clothing, leading others astray to their own destruction.

We encourage churches to celebrate a Creation Sunday, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Creator, Savior and Coming King, on February 12, 2017 rather than an atheist’s proposed Evolution Sunday.

Don’t let the Greatest Story Ever Sold share the pulpit with the Greatest Story Ever Told.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
[2 Corinthians 6:14-15]

You can find ideas to celebrate a Creation Celebration, find a celebration to attend near you, or even list your own celebration at http://CreationSundays.com.